Got a surprise update regarding the PenFed Platinum Cash Rewards Visa. My account was set to engage the annual fee and drop back to only 3% back on gas, so I called to have them close the account. (I pay it off every month.) The operator explained to me that they would like to keep my business and that I should know that if I chose to open a $25 money market account, that my card would remain exactly as it is now with no annual fee and 5% back on gas. I asked if there were ANY hidden fees or other costs associated with doing this, and she said that as long as the money market account held a balance of at least $25, then the benefits of the card would not change. I wonder how long this will last?) I told her that this was news to me since the mailing which I received didn't mention anything about this option at all. She said that PenFed had just changed their options this week to allow account holders to take advantage. I hate to fork over $25 since it feels like paying the annual fee, but if I get to keep my 5% then I can live with it. Just you watch - they'll change the fees and percentages again in less than a year.

9/24/2013 6:00:39 PM

Ive been keeping up with that fatwallet link on the the Penfed Plat Cash Rewards card as well, and the $25 that goes towards your money market account stays as yours, and is a lot better than the $1000 CD requirement that most people had to do. I drive a lot for work and last year alone my wife and I got $650 in statement credit, not bad for tying up $25 of my money.

Whats odd is I have no other loans or dealings with them but yet the only notice I received so far is a footnote on my online credit card statement saying they were getting rid of 0.25% credit for all other purchases. No 3% for gas or $25 AF threat yet.

9/24/2013 6:15:04 PM

How did you all receive notification of the changing terms? I can't find anything...

9/24/2013 6:59:58 PM

so glad I took the bait when they offered 20k points to switch me to the points version of the card. That sounds like a lot of hassle with the cash card.

They're devaluing the points version too, but to a lesser extent, it seems.

9/25/2013 11:33:29 AM

So award wallet sucks because half the airlines don't work on it. Does anyone else have a better alternative?

9/25/2013 4:00:11 PM

Excel

9/25/2013 4:00:30 PM

Quote :

"Does anyone else have a better alternative?"

9/25/2013 4:04:53 PM

http://www.points.com

9/25/2013 5:01:24 PM

Quote :

"Excel"

9/25/2013 5:07:06 PM

If you travel on a weekly basis updating Excel can become a pain unless there's some plugin I'm unaware of that hooks up to apis on a website.

9/25/2013 6:50:31 PM

Oh, well I'd just write one if I traveled that much.

9/26/2013 1:07:41 AM

Wish i could write one - don't know how to.

The more important thing than the miles is the expiration dates

9/26/2013 7:41:50 AM

I use UsingMiles.com, but it suffers from the same problems (certain airlines won't play nice).

I just add a manual entry for those and only worry about updating the miles' expiration dates.

9/26/2013 8:59:15 AM

I don't know why they don't write a screen scraper for the airlines that don't provide an api.

9/26/2013 10:00:16 AM

Just ditched my BOA Hawaiian Airlines card for their 123 card

Also, found this to be kind of neat, but not sure how many cards for which it works

https://www.benefitinformationcenter.com/

9/27/2013 11:52:54 AM

Don't know where to put this, but does anyone use Premium Car Rental Protection from Amex?

9/27/2013 12:01:09 PM

So I'm trying to set myself up to get two 50k SW cards towards the end of October and make a run at the CP.

Considerations:

1 - I currently have one Chase SW card, I think the Plus [personal], which I've had for 2-3 years.
2 - I have 6 other Chase cards
3 - The last time I applied for a Chase card, they made me drop the credit limit on one of my other Chase cards
4 - CK says my score has recently dropped to from 775ish to 698, seemingly due to a D rating for "Age of Credit History," aka too many new cards.

How can I put myself in a good position to get approved for these two additional 50k SW cards? Close a couple of the newer accounts? Close a Chase card or two? A combination of both? Do nothing, a 698 isn't *that* bad?

With MMS saying the 50k offer will only be around until Oct 30th, is it already too late for me to change my score anyway?

9/27/2013 12:12:24 PM

Six is a lot, esp for Chase. I'm at five and I literally just closed one in anticipation of the SW CP. It may be pretty hard to justify getting two additional cards if you already have one of their SW cards. Maybe if you have 10K plus limit on one of the open cards you can use that to get one additional card but I'd bet money you aren't going to get two. You can still change your score. I've never been < 700 though. You can always get the second SW card next year if you get denied this go round.

9/27/2013 1:52:59 PM

So maybe close a couple Chase cards? Should I close the SW card?

9/27/2013 2:15:55 PM

I would, esp if the anniversary is coming up.

9/27/2013 3:06:30 PM

For the "amazon payments" people out there I'm curious if you sent money this week on your chase freedom if it will count towards the 5% cash back this quarter ($1500 limit per quarter)?

10/4/2013 1:14:23 PM

I've heard no.

10/4/2013 2:19:43 PM

I'm wondering when I should actually apply for the Chase SW cards - I don't want the offer to expire (although it's been said it is running through Oct. 31?), but I don't want to risk accidentally hitting the spend on, like, dec 31.

I'm also trying to figure out how I'm going to get that extra 6k points - don't have any other hotel points or anything to transfer. I suppose I could just run $6k at my dad's company and have him give me the cash, but I doubt he'll be too pumped about that.

10/4/2013 2:20:39 PM

Quote :

"I don't want the offer to expire (although it's been said it is running through Oct. 31?), but I don't want to risk accidentally hitting the spend on, like, dec 31. "

So shoot for the last week or two of Oct. You can keep a close eye on your spend ya know. But certainly you'd be cutting it entirely too close to apply for it this early in the month [imo].

10/4/2013 2:37:02 PM

^^ You can buy points from other places and xfer them. I think it was around $300 gross last time I checked.

10/4/2013 2:52:28 PM

do NOT use credit cards. those big business scumbags WILL find your weakness and use it to steal from you and your family.

10/4/2013 6:56:18 PM

oh jc.......

10/5/2013 2:35:11 AM

60K UR pts just hit from the small business week chase ink bonus

10/6/2013 12:07:42 PM

Quote :

"After approval, spend 1000$ in 3 months to earn 70,000 points and 1 free night stay (category 1-4, earlier they used to give 50 or 75 $ credit but this is better, worth anywhere between 100-250$, YMMV) on first use"

http://slickdeals.net/f/6338548-chase-marriott-credit-card-70000-points-1-free-night-stay?src=pdw

10/13/2013 11:22:42 AM

Looks good to me. Sucks that chase has all the good cards though. Had planned on applying for another southwest in a week or two. Guess I'll apply for both of them and hope for the best.

10/14/2013 11:01:12 AM

got it last night at the 70k

10/14/2013 12:28:32 PM

I'm not as familiar with hotel rewards as cash rewards. What would, say, the marriott at Crabtree run on a Friday 2 months out in terms of rewards points? I assume that location is definitely in the category 1-4. The category 5 I take it is like NYC or a resort?

10/14/2013 3:22:39 PM

Probably 10k-15k per night.

You can search here: http://www.marriott.com/rewards/rewards-program.mi , just click the "use points" box.

10/14/2013 3:35:58 PM

Quote :

"Looks good to me. Sucks that chase has all the good cards though. Had planned on applying for another southwest in a week or two. Guess I'll apply for both of them and hope for the best."

That Marriott deal has been around forever. I wouldn't stress too much about it. There's a good USBank card out there right now.

http://millionmilesecrets.com/category/credit-cards/us-bank/us-bank-flex-perks/

10/14/2013 4:30:04 PM

70k + a night seems to be a better offer though, usually its 50k + a night.

10/14/2013 7:42:29 PM

Yeah, but isn't it usually 50k not 70k
Applied for that a few months ago but got the shittier card instead. $50 cash back

10/14/2013 7:56:05 PM

Marriott changed the category on like all the hotels a few months back. They added a "category 9" (used to be 1-8) and pretty much every hotel moved up a category. So basically they watered down the program a lot, since the higher category hotels use more points and pretty much every hotel is in a higher tier now.

10/15/2013 1:15:06 AM

Dunno, you can still stay in Raleigh for 10k-12.5k per night. That's not too shabby.

10/15/2013 1:20:27 AM

Quote :

"IHG® Rewards Club Visa Credit Card - 80,000 points after spending $1,000 in 3 months"

http://slickdeals.net/f/6341838-ihg-rewards-club-visa-credit-card-80-000-points-after-spending-1-000-in-3-months?


IHG always offers "pointsbreaks" sales where you can get rooms for 5k points/night.
http://www.ihg.com/hotels/us/en/global/redeem-rewards/pointbreaks

10/15/2013 2:03:41 PM

Okay so I need to confirm that what I'm thinking will pan out right.

1. If I apply for the two SW cards, I still need to come up with the 6k extra points - would it behoove me to apply for the 70k Marriott card and transfer them to 25k SW points, or find another way to get those points? If I can buy 6k points from someone for $100 or something, I'd much rather just do that.

2. If I don't get the Marriott card for the SW points transfer, should I get the IHG card? That sounds like a really good deal, if not just for the annual free stay at any of their properties (versus the tiered Marriott thing). But I don't want to push my luck with Chase (I have a Slate Visa in good standing that I plan on closing at the end of this year).

3. I'm worried about the timing and worried I'm not thinking of this clearly (it's been a long day) - I just have to hit the spend on both cards in the first 3 months, and can worry about getting the remaining 6k points to get the CP anytime after that, right? So I can hit the spend before the first of the year, and not actually hit CP status until anytime after the first, to qualify for the CP through end of 2015?

10/15/2013 4:41:00 PM

Just noticed a pretty cool feature of my Citi Forward card:

Quote :

"Cellular Telephone Protection If you pay your monthly cell phone bills with your Citi® credit card and your cell phone is damaged or stolen, you have supplemental insurance coverage that reimburses you for a replacement phone."

...though it's only worth up to $250

Quote :

"Cellular Telephone Protection Visa Cellular Telephone Protection is supplemental reimbursement and is underwritten by Indemnity Insurance Company of North America. Certain conditions, restrictions and exclusions apply. Coverage is subject to a maximum reimbursement amount of $250 in excess of the $50 co-payment you are required to pay. Details of coverage will be provided upon cardmembership."

10/16/2013 12:21:46 PM

a lot of CC's have benefits like that, but most people don't know about them and/or don't take advantage of them.

10/16/2013 12:54:33 PM

Yeah, just found out about the cell protection via another card.

slappy1

1. I don't think you can just buy 6k pts from someone, however you can buy hotel pts and then xfer them to southwest. It should run you about $300 I got my extra sw points by using amz payments and prepaying bills.

2. Yes, worst case scenario is they say no

3. No, you cannot hit the spend before the first of the year. You must accrue all 110k pts within a cal year.

10/16/2013 1:19:33 PM

eeek okay, I will need to plan this carefully then. so I could do $1999 on both cards before Jan 1st and $1 on both cards after, and would also need to buy/transfer the remaining 6k points also after Jan 1st?



[Edited on October 16, 2013 at 3:04 PM. Reason : thx]

10/16/2013 3:02:46 PM

^ That's my understanding, but that's not worth that much

10/16/2013 3:09:33 PM

Correct. Although keep in mind if you do that then you'll need 9000+ pts, not 6000.

10/16/2013 3:29:31 PM

this doesn't make complete sense then, because you (in theory) would get the 2000pt for the $2000 you spend (=4k factored into the 110k needed) as the statements close, so those wouldn't count either?

there's really no realistic way for me to do this this time around then. even if I applied for the cards on Oct 30, that means I would have to spend $6k ($4k spend for SW cards + $2k spend for Marriott card for points to transfer) in the month of January.

edit: althought the Marriot card pt transfer would give me 25k points...so I wouldn't need the points from the spend then

[Edited on October 16, 2013 at 3:34 PM. Reason : k]

10/16/2013 3:31:19 PM

It sounds as though you're getting Chase and Southwest time frame / pt requirement confused.

If you spend $1999 in Nov you'll get 1999 sw pts which count toward your 2013 goal (worthless) If you then spend $1 in Jan you'll get 1 sw pt toward your 2014 goal and then 50,000 sw pts toward your 2014 goal.

10/16/2013 3:34:31 PM

Okay so in summary. I can apply for all 3 cards now, and just figure out a way to spend $6000 in three months, $2 of which have to happen after Jan 1.

10/16/2013 3:36:11 PM

Yes, but I'd try to get the 2 sw cards first. I'd be very surprised if you were able to get all 3 chase cards at once.

10/16/2013 3:39:04 PM